Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Ask the Newlyweds: Long Distance Honeymoon

I was very fortunate that my Honeymoon was gift from my husband’s family who all resided in Italy. I am very grateful for their kindness to give us an opportunity to view a country full of tradition of culture, but I rushed myself ruining the experience and causing great stress in the earliest days of my marriage. Here is a lesson on what not to do.

My husband’s uncle asked us where would we like to visit. Due to our new jobs and school we were only allotted one week for our honeymoon so we were limited to our options, but we wanted to see as much as possible. That was first our out of many mistakes trying to do too much in such a small time span. There was no time to take a breath and immerse yourself where you were. Memories were scattered, and locales were mixed up.

Our flight was not direct, but that was not an option since my new in-laws lived on a remote island of an island. The eight hour flight to Milan, plus the lost of sleep due to the time zones was hard enough, but we had to take second flight to Sardinia, then a forty-five minute car ride to the ferry, then a hour long ferry ride to the town where my husband’s grandmother lived.

I was so tired I cried, I felt so horrible, because here I am meeting his family for the first time and I haven’t slept for thirty-six hours. I was seeing family, so there wasn’t an option of a direct flight to our destination. Not a mistake in our case, but I recommend not going somewhere so remote that it causes sleep deprivation on your first vacation as a married couple. It seemed we lost a whole day. I just was married on Saturday and before I knew it, it was Monday afternoon.

Soon as we were relaxed, we had plans off to our next port of call, Venice. If I had to do it all over again, I would enjoy just staying with my husband’s grandmother learning how to cook Italian by the ocean side. Traveling really knocks the wind out of most people, and causes nerves to rise. Our honeymoon was a test of our marriage.

The majority of our time was eaten up by travel, even though we had two full days in each city we visited. Two days is enough time to see many things, but not enough time to see everything if you are hailing taxis and checking in and out of hotel rooms. If there was a moment we weren’t doing anything tourist related we stressed out, that we would miss something else. We didn’t give ourselves time just to do nothing, an important component to achieve relaxation. Venice was small so the two days were compatible for our plans.

Our final destination was Rome a much larger city the remote village or the tiny canals ways in Venice. I was drained after half dozen flights and numerous forms of transportation from on spot to another. Again we forced ourselves to use every spare moment. We went to the Vatican in the morning and to the Coliseum in the late afternoon by means of the subway.

We were in our third bed in 6 days, actually the fourth bed if you include the seat in the airplane coming over and I didn’t know left from right. Our sight seeing became a blur rushing from one landmark to another, without a moment to take in the scenery and realize where we was.

We left Italy on Sunday in which going to the airport, a 90-minute drive was a long distance trip in itself. By the afternoon we were back in America. We needed a vacation from our vacation, but that was not an option since our jobs were awaiting us Monday morning. Another mistake we made.

If traveling a long distance give yourself time to recoup, at least one full day before going back to work. You are on vacation, not on business and your honeymoon is the time to unwind from all the wedding related stress that mounted up during your engagement. Honeymoons aren’t the time to experiment with your stamina or with tension, make sure you can enjoy as much time as possible with little exposure to wastes and stresses of traveling.

-- Renee, Lowell MA

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